Leno destroys NBC's ten o'clock - sets sights on Conan!

This just in, Jay Leno apparently has a trait even bigger than his chin - his ego.

With all of the delicacy of Godzilla stomping through Tokyo, Jay Leno has stomped through the late night schedule of NBC and rained havoc. Just months ago, Leno leapfrogged the nightly news and landed in NBC's ten o'clock time slot with expectations only he and NBC shared - to reinvent the 10 PM slot as a super profitable, low production cost brainstorm. The result was a-probably-a-little-profitable, certainly low cost puddle. And suddenly Leno is quick with the "I always wanted to stay at 11:35, I would never have left The Tonight Show" face savers.

From our late night seats, here's a piece of reality programming - Leno sucked at 10 PM 'cause Leno sucked at 10 PM.

Mind you, we weren't big fans an hour and 35 minutes later either. Still, we gave the opening week at 10 a try. At first we were shocked at how ribald the humor was, regardless that it was shifted to the earlier time slot. (We couldn't recall ever feeling that way watching Tonight. Anyone else agree?) Then we were just bored silly. And that's silly in a bad way. The show blew and it blew hard because of its host. Even a worthy and watchable guest seemed to sink into the morass of Leno's overwhelming control of each interview. And as for the skits and bits - take the misery that is Saturday Night Live and times it by ten (10, get it?).

Now with NBC shutting down the big switch (and in the process, having to admit that scripted shows are worth the money it takes to pay real writers), Leno appears poised to slime his way back into The Tonight Show slot, tail between his legs and chin chasing his ego, all regardless of what the current host may think or be coerced into doing.

And even with the disclaimer that we neither like or watch Conan, we think all of this sucks. The Tonight Show IS 11:30 (bad enough when they moved it five minutes) on NBC. Name the shows what you will, that fact is not lost on Leno. Conan should have gotten more respect. Jimmy Fallon should have been at the top of the copy list on the memos and deserves a free shopping card on NBC.com. And as David Letterman pointed out last night on his program, does anyone even remember that Carson Daly has a show following all of this mess?

Conan appears now, according to today's press releases, willing to pull his own plug at NBC if he's pushed to starting The Tonight Show, tomorrow (12:05 AM) each night. His exit would free up The Tonight Show entirely, conveniently allowing Leno to slip back to his old digs and to hell with Conan and crew's hard work, relocations and ernest effort. At least Fallon would survive unscathed. As for Carson Daly, well, no one's really watching anyway.

And that would leave Conan only ever so briefly homeless. Though a move to Fox would likely only capture our attention on premiere week, we would at least have a new rooting interest. We'd be rooting for all comers to slam Leno into the one location where he truly belongs at 11:30 each night - on his couch at home watching television like the rest of us.